


Understanding Is A Three-Person Process

by SaintClaire



Category: Siren (TV 2018)
Genre: Confusion, Elaine POV, Elaine doesn't hate Maddie, Family, Fluff, I mean most people's first thought wouldn't be 'oh they're in a triad relationship', In which Elaine sees 1+1+another 1 and does not equal 3, Multi, parents who love their children, which is fair
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-25
Updated: 2019-03-25
Packaged: 2019-12-07 03:27:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18229292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaintClaire/pseuds/SaintClaire
Summary: Elaine loved her son, even if she wasn't dancing for joy over his choice in girlfriend.So when she sees him cuddled up and walking around town with another girl, she's (very slightly) selfishly pleased.And then she sees Maddie, also with the new girl and is both a little angry and a little alarmed.  What exactly is going on here?And then she sees the three of them together and -Oh.  Now she gets it.





	Understanding Is A Three-Person Process

**Author's Note:**

> I only just finished watching season 1, and I cannot wait until season 2 drops on Stan. This is a little story that jumped into my head at 1am and wouldn't go away until I wrote it down, and then I decided I may as well post it. But I'm coming back to write more for these guys, and there are IDEAs in the works, rather than slightly melancholy 3rd person POV's. Happy reading!

When she’d first seen Ben walking by the docks with his arm around the girl, she’d let herself feel a very small frisson of selfish hope.

 

They looked comfortable together, staring out at the sea. Ben’s mouth was moving, clearly in the middle of some story or other, and the girl just seemed content to fit into his side, half drowned in the oversize men’s jacket she was wearing.

 

She made herself squash the ugly little bloom of hope inside of her. She’d had an almost pleasant lunch with Maddie just the other day, and she didn’t like the thought of her son as someone who cheated on his girlfriend.

 

This must be… someone else. An old friend of Ben’s, someone from university maybe. That was probably it. The girl was certainly no-one she recognized; small and dark-haired, with an intense air about her. She would be from out of town.

 

…

 

She was in the process of wheeling herself down to the café a few days later, when she caught sight of Maddie, standing alone against the side of the bar, rummaging through her bag. She considered going up and trying to start a friendly conversation, when the girl suddenly appeared again.

 

The selfish part of her brain wondered if some kind of feminine catfight was about to go down, but on seeing the girl, Maddie’s face lit up, and she caught the smaller girl up in her arms, hugging her close and pressing her face into the side of her neck.

 

She huffed quietly to herself. The girl must be a friend of theirs both, or perhaps a relative of Maddie’s in some way.

 

But as the light turned and she prepared to cross the road, the embrace in front of her changed, the smaller girl pulling back from Maddie’s hug and lightly pressing a kiss against her lips. She walked away, reaching back to pull Maddie by the hand behind her, Maddie trailing after her with a smile still on her face.

 

Unless this was a friend or family member with an unusually intimate greeting gesture, there was something very off.

 

She thought back to Ben’s visit only yesterday. Her son had been happy, his face open, his posture relaxed in a way it usually wasn’t when he was around her. He didn’t act like someone who was having troubles with his girlfriend. Perhaps he just didn’t know? It might have been a shortcoming of hers as a parent to be so keenly aware of her son’s weaknesses, but Ben had always been just a little to naïve, a little too trusting.

 

She snapped back to the present when someone hesitantly opened the door of their car, still idling in the middle of the road. The face of a concerned citizen about to check on a women sitting foolishly in front of a green light in a wheelchair, the need to help still irritatingly present, despite all the years that had passed since her accident.

 

She hastily threw up a hand, waving them off and rolled herself across the road, pulling herself up the curb.

 

When she looked back in the direction of the pub, both Maddie and the girl were gone.

 

 

…

 

She wasn’t ashamed to say that she debated what to do for a little while. Calling Ben and simply asking was out of the question, he had never been one for sharing the details of his life, no matter how mundane or private.

 

She could speak to Maddie, but she would likely turn straight around and mention it to Ben, who would certainly not thank her for what he would see as meddling. Like she didn’t have the right to care that her sons were both happy in their relationships.

 

No, that was unfair. After all those little incidents with Maddie at the beginning of their ongoing teté a teté, she had rather lost the moral high ground there.

 

In the end, she went for a source slightly less treacherous, and interrogated Doug for any new information he might have about his older brother. Her Doug, bless him, was a cheerful soul that somehow managed to have a vast array of town gossip available to him without working for it, or hoarding it maliciously.

 

And the girl, according to Doug, was a friend of Maddie’s from school, who he had met at a party awhile back.

 

So the connection was on Maddie’s end, rather then Ben’s.

 

And her name was Ryn.

 

A little alarmingly, Doug had also innocently let out that Ryn was staying at Ben’s place, Maddie must have offered to put her up with them.

 

She couldn’t help the little flutter of unease at that. They might be both girls, but things were so different nowadays. Bristol Cove might be a small town, but all of these young people didn’t much care to conform to the heterosexual lifestyle the way they might have 50 years ago. And her son worked often, starting early, finishing late and often taking the boat out, sometimes for several days at a time.

 

Surely there was nothing to worry about… Unless there was?

 

…

 

The third time was different. She and Ted were sitting at the same restaurant she’d had lunch with Maddie, overlooking the scenery when Ted suddenly broke off their conversation, staring over her shoulder with a look of surprise.

 

Maddie and, – and _Ryn_ were perched delicately on the large flat rock that started the little rock hop trail into the water, looking into the gently foaming pools below. Ryn was standing behind Maddie, arms encircling her waist as they clasped hands over Maddie’s stomach.

 

Elaine drew in a sharp gasp as Ryn dropped her head and pressed a kiss into the skin over Maddie’s bicep, nuzzling into her side for a moment as Maddie’s head dropped back, rolling on her neck to rest on the top of Ryn’s head for a moment.

 

She shared a short, horrified glance with Ted for a brief moment, his chair scraping backwards as though he were about to stand up, before they both turned back to the girls, who were murmuring things to each other, the conversation stolen by the distance and the wind.

 

This was clearly worse than she had thought, what on earth did Maddie think-

 

But as they watched, both girls suddenly looked up sharply, turning in concert to the shore. Ben was there, calling out to them with a smile on his face as he took great strides over the sand, bounding onto the rock.

 

Her anger, only seconds ago swirling violently in her ears turned suddenly to shock, caught by the golden smile on her son’s face.   Nimble as a goat, she watched him pick his way out to the two women, springing from one rock to the next with an ease that made a phantom ache in her legs burn just a little.

 

The girls didn’t change position at all, still wrapped around each other as Ben made his way out to them, both of them still with their heads turned to watch him come. When he reached them, Elaine watched him wrap one arm around Ryn, the other hand coming up for a moment to card through her hair, as Ryn loosened her grip on Maddie and turned into him, rubbing her face against Ben’s shirt. He briefly cupped the side of Ryn’s face, and then looked up to Maddie, who leant forward over Ryn’s shoulder and kissed him gently, the same chaste ‘hello’ kiss she had witnessed half a dozen times before.

 

They sat in stunned silence, as Ben and Maddie talked briefly, Maddie’s hand also moving to trail through Ryn’s hair as the smaller girl stayed held tightly between the two of them. Ben’s hands moved to gently smooth over Ryn’s shoulders, planting a kiss on the top of her head that Maddie matched.

 

A few more words were exchanged, their son smiling fondly into the top of Ryn’s head at something amusing in her answer, and then the little trio swung around, and began to make their way off the rocks. Ben and Maddie stood either side of Ryn, loosely holding her hands in the way people do when they want contact for the simple pleasure of contact. Just because you want to hold hands.

 

Ben looked over to Maddie, easily clearing the top of Ryn’s head and said something that was accompanied by a cheesy wink, that earned a small smile and a shove from Ryn, nearly pushing him off the rocks while Maddie cackled. They continued on, Ben running to catch back up with them and take back hold of Ryn’s free hand, dwarfing it in his larger one.

 

They watched the little party slowly make their way up the beach, in the direction of the houseboat, holding hands all the way, still clearly talking and laughing among each other.

 

Eventually, they rounded the rocky outcrop and went out of view, Ryn vaulting over the rock and turning to help Maddie. She hefted Maddie’s weight over the rock with a surprising ease for someone her size before doing the same for Ben, who cleared the top of the rock and made to vanish from view.

 

Ears still ringing faintly from shock, she turned her chair back to the table and picked up her wineglass, staring blankly somewhere past Ted as she took a small sip of the wine.

 

Distantly, she heard Ted clear his throat and looked up.

 

“Did you know about that?” he asked, with a rather flustered look of shock on his face. The joys of being a parent to a child that still manage to surprise you, in ways that you might prefer not to be surprised.

 

But that was always Ben.

 

“No,” she said, taking another healthy sip of her wine for good measure. “I’ve only seen her a few times. It looked like something a little odd was going on, but… That was – not what I was expecting.”

 

Her husband nodded thoughtfully, both of them turning to stare at where the son had disappeared only a minute or so before. When they turned back to look at each other, something inside her broke, and all of a sudden she burst into laughter, all the while watching her husband do the same.

 

The helpless laughter of parents with two sons, one of who still manages to pull off entirely unexpected stunts in a way that flaunts his relentless independence and loving heart, and another who goes out of his way to be as sweet-natured and predictable as possible.

 

“Just think,” she sighed, reaching for her fork where it had been abandoned on the table. “I’d only just gotten used to him being with Maddie.”

**Author's Note:**

> Please guys, please tell me any ideas that you have or would like to see written about with this triad - can't promise I'll write it, but I'd love to know.


End file.
